When escape becomes the only lover

When you have bagged pain inside like bagging knows no weight
And bled you have, an uncommon white. And felt you have, an uncommon black
Escape becomes the only lover

Escape becomes an artwork-in-progress
There is time to step away from the canvass, sometimes into another room
The lover you have wanted to hold, sometimes onto the flowered meadowlands

And move away to Chinhoyi

Transcending the aloneness of being separate from others
Empty spaces, sane spaces, absences, like giving away your own death
Answers that are not on the wind

Escape becomes wide awake-dreaming, like running away from you
On your way to yourself
There are a few to be loved; escape is a picker that way
Escape becomes the wife you don’t remember marrying.

Vessels of Dreams

And they leave the darkness in their own darkness. They unleave that
place that is unnamed. They leave that being there. They unleave the
unsaid, undone here. They leave some details, lost. They unleave
memories that remained vivid and clear. They unleave their memories
like a carry in arithmetic. They leave answers hidden in moonlight of
memories. They leave the moon migrating to the south.  They unleave
the jazz of the sun. They leave the wind that carries waterless
clouds. They leave footsteps that can never step. They unleave their
footsteps in their sleep. They leave a thousand and one nights to
dream. They unleave the source of so much reaching the other side of
this night. They leave quite views of places left and paths imagined.
They leave the underground railroads of their minds. They unleave the
overground railroads of their hearts. They leave the road that seemed
to twist and turn on its way to an African address. They unleave the
bridge that has waited to connect them. They leave their boat on the
mooring. They unleave their boat out at sea. They leave the font. They
unleave the wishing well. They leave hours’ flavours of silence. They
unleave living in defiance. They leave the pink fresh scars of new
mistakes. They unleave pimples of innocence. They unleave the
aloneness of being separate from others. They leave the girls to
become women so that they might return back to harvest wives. They
unleave the crops of a drought year that they have now reaped. They
leave maize stalks that were Indian summer scarlet and burgundy. They
leave the bears of yesteryear to be with men they have cropped. They
unleave the bear’s soup can. They unleave whatever that doesn’t
pretend. They leave rooms small enough to hold all of them as they
prayed. They unleave the names of all those who have been washed
downstream, interrogating God, “where the hell were you when our lives
were hurt?” They unleave these prayers, needing separate rooms.

WALL AGAINST WALL

Love against the wall
Heart against the wall
Is wall against wall

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

It’s an awesome burden that you carry
  You are wronged yet no one cares
    On top of you, everything seems to fall
      The unasked for, all the world’s rubble
        They say lies, demeaning, distressing
Pain daily devours you unceasing

You are not alone as they tout for your head
         You deserve, not of life but of death
       Like a sheep led to the slaughterhouse
     They lead you too, to their death houses
  Worry not for they only take your flesh and blood
No sword can reach your soul, no blow

As you find no food, clothes and shelter
         Living on leftovers, tatters and the sky
       Like a wild animal, you room the wilds
     Thorns and thistles devouring your world
   Finding nowhere to rest your head
He sees your predicament, your needing help

They can put you to trial, persecute, but
  He is slow in judgement and condemnation
    Abounding in grace, forgiveness and redemption
      They view you a society’s outcast, accursed
        Not in his eyes, not in his kingdom
          Together as one people, together to the one Lord
With him forever you will never be alone.

WORDS

The name of a word should have permission to deal itself
Black notes dancing on white paper: words
Epileptic, Tourettic, Operatic, unEvened out, Issonance
Don’t turn to the dictionary. It won’t find me wrong, because I won’t
allow it. I have used them that way, Humpty dumpy, dumping... They
burn that way, like a fire. She checks the dictionary page marked
“Fire” to see how it burns. It doesn’t burn the page for her
Some words can only be pronounced by their own selves
Less is more, what “more”? Can I do more with less, that is more, that
is less, more…? Let me tank it.
The name of words should have permission to arise from their bed with
bits of their beds caught on their hair
The misuse of words is the better mattress for the words, curving out
an aura from their truths
Locus of absurd misapplication: we tie names to words, and words tie
names to us, like: Dick, Charlie, and Jane… am I, a word? My name is
Tendai. Does this incurs a chronic alter of vowels? It is a word. It
means: we thank, I thank, he thanks, you thank. Thanks, thanking who;
God, my parents, me, you? Tendai, how much…? Mwanaka, and how much is
that?
Mwanaka means you are beautiful, so beautiful…
Am I?
I who am nothing more than myself?
Not my surname…
Water always speaks in its own voice, do I?
Words are bodies broken by saying them, thinking of them
Do I break myself by my just being there, by speaking my name, when
someone speaks it, when I think of it? Thinking that I am Tendai Rinos
(not that beautiful animal with its horns, otherwise my big nose might
be mistaken for a horn), I have a second name, that I don’t like. Here
(in my second name: Rinos), I am not my name but the paths that rains
trails, the measure of their tumble
Are you now breaking me by reading this?
This question is lost in the questioning it
The answer is just safe words
Words strangled of their real possibilities
Some words beg for forgiveness for their definitions
……..
 I forgive?
……..
What?
……..
Words?
……..
Did I?